Friday, 7 July 2017

So it was (at least according to the player himself) that Sylvio Pirillo, the Brazil coach back in 1957, decided to give a debut to a 16-year-old bundle of fluff with wide eyes and thunder thighs. He went by the name of Pelé. Perhaps you have heard of him.

It was both the start of a beautiful story and the culmination of a series of unlikely events. For while the striker had made his senior debut for Santos some ten months earlier, it was in another team's jersey that he had caught Pirillo's eye.